Will You Comply?

Also, misanthropy and moderates. #ThreeThoughtThursday

#1 Will you comply?

By now, most politically aware people have heard the rumor that a “new variant” of covid is coming out of Canada and that we might all be told to mask up, lock down, and inject more weird stuff into our bodies (so we can make one more pharma billionaire).

Patient zero for this rumor appears to have been Alex Jones, who reported that two different fed whistleblowers had come to him and warned of these plans. Planning for (or perhaps to invent) a new variant. Planning to ask (or perhaps force) people once again to comply with the recommendations of governments and “experts.” Other sources have now substantiated this, so Jones is not alone. Whether it will actually come to pass or not is a separate question.

But what if it does. Will you comply? Will you wear a mask, stay in your home, and take a booster? Will you only partially comply—wearing masks on planes and at doctor appointments, and that’s it? Will you wear masks at work because you have to or you’ll get fired?

People are saying now that they won’t comply this time, but is that really true? Are you willing to create a spectacle in public places by refusing to mask up and then arguing with store managers? Very few people are. Our tribal-social wiring screams, “Don’t make a scene.” It’s hard to overcome, and very few of us do.

Totalitarianism is very easy to impose. Vaclav Havel called it the “automatism of the system.” It is easy to transmit authoritarian orders down through a society, and there are plenty of people eager to implement them or unwilling—or afraid—to resist. To some degree, they have us over a barrel. People have to work, so they have to do what their bosses say. And if you have to travel, it does not matter how pointless masking actual is, medically and scientifically—if the airlines say you must, then you must. Refuse to do so and cops will haul you off the plane and arrest you.

BUT…

Totalitarianism is also very fragile. The instant a critical mass of people simply say NO, it falls like a house of cards. That critical mass does not need to be anything close to a majority. If an energetic minority resists, that’s that.

So what do you say? Will you comply this time? Will you resist?

#2 Misanthropy and Hank Rearden

The last thought bleeds straight into this one.

Like I said, we don’t need a majority to break the back of the neo-totalitarianism that has been imposed upon us. But it does need to be more than JUST ME, ALONE, OUT OF 200 PEOPLE IN A WALMART!

Last time, I did resist. But in my area, I was just about the only one. I live in farm country, but it is New York state farm country. Thus, we have people who know better, but who are so frightened of, or inured to, this state’s authoritarianism that they simply did not fight back. So, I would walk around Walmart knowing that if the 30 percent or so who know better would just pluck up the courage to join me, there is NO WAY they could stop us.

But they didn’t join me.

That left me the only one. Alone. Facing the dirty looks, the frantic Karens, the store managers who were just doing their jobs. Keeping my fists balled ready for the dude who decided to deputize himself an enforcer of the regime (and I did have to square off once, so that was not an empty concern). Taking a stand. Making a scene, even though my social programming told me not to.

I am not going to sugar-coat this: I came to feel disgust for humanity during that time.

I was especially shocked about the men. In the aggregate, men are more disagreeable than women. This means they are less likely to be concerned about social norms when they feel strongly enough about something. Surely the men around me who know better will resist, I thought. Nope.

I also had my understanding of Americans utterly shattered. About 20 years ago, I read that Americans, though we all come from different ethnic backgrounds, do tend to share one genetic trait: the risk-taking gene. We all share one thing in common, you see—our ancestors were the type of people to get on a ship, cross a howling ocean, and start a new life in an unknown land. Even those who came in more recent decades were more likely to be risk-takers by nature. But that did not seem to matter during covid. Had that trait been so denuded in 20 years?

And what about our history? We’re Americans, I thought. The antibodies of liberty flow through our veins. We are spiritual descendants of Patrick Henry. Give me liberty or give me death.

Nope.

Once I realized that we were not the freedom fighters I thought we were, I became very disillusioned.

During that period, I happened to be listening to an audiobook version of Atlas Shrugged, and there was a moment that perfectly summed up how I felt. Spoiler alert, for those of you who have not yet read it…

There comes a moment, late in the book, when the dependable Eddie Willers is finally broken: the Equalization of Opportunity bill is the last straw. At that point, he finds that,

“He disliked the sight of the city: it now looked as if it hid the threat of some malicious unknown.”

That summed up the feeling I had. I no longer trusted that the people around me could be relied upon to defend not only freedom, but truth itself. Reality had become unmoored, replaced by some malicious unknown.

In the book, even the preternaturally sanguine and trusting Hank Rearden eventually gets it: people are not what he expected. In fact, those people can alter the very fabric of the reality he believed existed, to the point where he had to run away to a hidden gulch to find that reality. I found myself fantasizing about that gulch, and also feeling rather misanthropic.

Misanthropy is not good for us, however. Whether we like it or not, we are an ultra-social species by nature. Even the most independent among us need social relationships, and it is not healthy—mentally, emotionally, spiritually, or physically—to feel a general sense of disillusionment about one’s own species.

I used to be very upbeat about humanity in general. I did not have an unconstrained, Rousseauean view of us as perfectible and automatically good, but I did have a Whiggish hope that that we are progressing towards something better. I have not fully lost that feeling, but it did suffer a major blow in 2020–21. I am hoping to recover it.

And I am hoping that the next time our overlords attempt to impose tyranny upon us, more people resist. Please.

#3 Hope in moderates

You have probably noticed that some of the more sane members of the left are now being driven away by the orthodox left’s headlong plunge into the Depths of Madness. The typical moderate—less political, or at least less extreme—is likely to find the their accelerating combination of narcissistic virtue-signaling, self-righteous wrath, and authoritarianism rather off-putting.

Actor Laurence Fox seems to be a good example. From what little I know, he appears to have once had somewhat leftish instincts. He works in a profession that tilts heavily left, and comes from a caste that increasingly skews left. And yet he is so grossed out that they're driving him, and people like him, away. I don't know how long he will maintain these views, but for now, this video is encouraging. Thank God not everyone is fooled.

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